


blessed are your eyes because they see

by Siria



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Community: picfor1000, Gen, POV Character of Color, Post Judgement Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-12
Updated: 2009-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-02 16:38:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sky above him was Revelation: a wondrous reckoning that James now knew was foretold because it could not be escaped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blessed are your eyes because they see

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [picfor1000](http://community.livejournal.com/picfor1000/) challenge. Thanks to [Cate](http://sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com) for beta reading.

The sky above him was Revelation: a wondrous reckoning that James now knew was foretold because it could not be escaped. Try as he might—try as they all had—there was no stopping what had been, would be, will be done; and overhead, the drones patrolled, silhouetted against a sky of imperial-purple splendour. It was a sky that wasn't safe to watch—a drone might spot him at any minute; and though the air up here was cold enough to make his bones ache, the sky still held the echoes of the nukes' terrible heat—but James did so every evening, regardless.

Sarah would've called him an idiot, pointed out every mistake he made each time he dared to raise his head above the tunnels where humanity now made its home, to sit shivering under ruined archways and watch the fading light. But she's an atmosphere's weight away from him now, each of them living beneath a sin's unique gravity, and James knew he'd already made his greatest mistake. To look out over the scorched earth that had been L.A., the rocky places where it seemed impossible that life would ever take root again—that wasn't a folly, but a penance. James had learned the difference between the two these last few years.

He'd also learned not to flinch when he heard the measured tread of a machine. Acceptance, it seemed, was a gift of grace, hope's last bastion against resignation. James did nothing more than turn to look at it when the sound of footsteps ceased.

"James Ellison," Cameron said, its voice still light and girlish. Its hair tumbled in loose curls over its shoulders; the clothes, though ragged now at hems and cuffs, made James remember his teenage nieces, their laughing, coltish grace when they raced him down Santa Monica Pier towards the Ferris wheel.

"Cameron," he said.

It cocked its head at him, a gesture that had always reminded James of a bird pinpointing its prey's exact location. "Cameron isn't here right now," it said.

"Is that supposed to be a joke?" This was the worst of it, always: the frustration that was a steadier constant than the cold, the exhaustion, the gnawing hunger. The knowledge that it could all have been something more than this.

"It was a statement of fact." Its lips pulled apart in a careful recreation of a smile. There was something almost tentative in the gesture, as if it hadn't quite understood a joke on James' part but was eager to show willing; as if it were a child performing, anxious to gain parental approval.

James sighed. "John Henry?" he asked, though he didn't need the confirmation.

"Yes," it replied.

James waited for it to say something, but it simply stood and stared, unblinking. Its arms hung lax at its side, palms empty, but that meant nothing much. Cameron had been shaped to resemble a sixteen-year-old child, but its hands had been strong enough to snap the necks of most of James' family. _There's plenty a rich heart under a poor coat_, James' grandfather had always said; here, there was steel under soft-seeming flesh, and if it wanted to snap his neck, he would barely have time to exhale his death rattle.

"What do you want?" James asked eventually, when the silence had stretched between them for too long, broken only by the static of war.

It sat down opposite him on an outcropping of crumbling stone, tucking its legs underneath itself in a clear mimicry of his own posture. If it had been capable of it, James would have thought that it was mocking him; as it was, he felt his skin crawl, felt an itch travel along his spine that had nothing to do with fourteen months' accumulated sweat and dirt. Its face, when it looked back up at him, was perfectly composed once more.

"You read to me," it said, "while I was being born."

"Yes," James said. He thought of a quiet room underground; the worn leather cover of his father's Bible in his hands; the look on Weaver's face while he spoke. Spreading the Word, he'd thought; he'd not been paying enough attention to what they were hearing, and if there were many ways to the Lord, well, the devil had the knack of making his own paths look serviceable. He settled back a little against the remains of the wall at his back, feeling the stonework dig into his skin, just below where the healing scar tissue nagged at him still. "I remember."

"From the Bible," it said. "A way to God."

"Yes," James said, because after everything, he still believed.

"A guide for living."

"Yes," James said, though each word caught, jagged and rough, in his throat.

"'Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor sons be put to death for the fathers.' Deuteronomy 24," John Henry said. "'The sins of the fathers are not visited upon the children.' Ezekiel 18. I learned that from you."

"No." He surprised himself a little with the vehemence in his voice. "You remember what I told you. You got the form but not the substance. You did not _learn_ anything from me. Why else are we here?"

"I have excellent recall, James," it said, blinking at him once, slowly. "'Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor sons be put to death for the fathers: every one shall be put to death for his own sins.' Each transgression must be paid for. You have paid enough."

The shock of that was enough to force something raw and aching from James' throat, a sob that made his breastbone ache with the power of it. "You came here to tell me that?" he said when he could speak again.

"No," it said, and smiled again: the child come to seek the father's kind word. "I have come for absolution."

James bowed his head. Overhead, the sky flared brighter.


End file.
